Show of Sculptures and Digital Prints by Saba Khan
A show of sculptures and digital prints titled ‘Encroachments’ by Saba Khan, a graduate of the National College of Arts, opened at Rohtas-2 Art Gallery, Model Town, on Wednesday.
The artworks are unique in use of material and presentation. The sculptures include Sheer-maal chairs made of wood, polyester stuffing, polyester fabric, gesso, PVA glue and acrylic paint.
The artist says about her work, “an object that doesn’t belong in an otherwise blissful context begins to raise issues of innocence and vulgarity at the same time, an imported culture, a displaced, a cancer growing, an encroachment.”
A sculpture ‘The Jumping Castle’ is beautifully made with particle board, crystals, beads, metal embellishment and thread. It is symbolic and reflective of imported aesthetics. The artist has transformed it into an ornate symphony of imported aesthetics that lures and invites into intolerance and territorialism.
The large digital prints of main boulevard, DHA Phase 5, British Army barracks, Sukhaha Talaab on Waris Road, Gosha-i-Aman Church, Old Home, Convent, established in 1887 and Garhi Shahu, Lahore are explicit of the fact that imported culture does not suite indigenous one.
For example, the artist’s digital print on the main boulevard is suggestive of the fact that date palm trees planted there have no relevance with the land culture and atmosphere of the city. There should have been indigenous trees which have shadow and native birds can breed over there.
Similarly, the artist through her another sculpture ‘The Sheer-maal Chairs’ has made a satire on socialite women whose bellies bulge out and such women hardly fit in chairs wearing all those diamonds and glitter. The works are suggestive of the fact that with an artificial, glittered life of socialites, there are other realities of life as well.
Her works are about shifting cultures, past histories and wrong placements of buildings and plants at a wrong place and she takes such wrong equations as ‘Encroachments’.
The exhibition will remain on display till Sept 22.
(Dawn)
